


Kindred Spirits

by Squickqueen



Category: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017)
Genre: F/M, Growing Old, Melancholy, Regret, Soul Bond, Swearing, What Could Have Been, destroyed dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squickqueen/pseuds/Squickqueen
Summary: What could have been but never was.
Relationships: Mildred Hayes/William "Bill" Willoughby





	Kindred Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> This movie floored me (now I regret even more that I didn't watch it on the big screen *sighs*). Anyway, I felt inspired and had to get this ficlet out of my system. And it's het... I can't remember the last time I wrote het. I'm getting old :'D
> 
> <3s and thank yous go as usual to the lovely [Talimee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talimee) for beta reading this late night outpour.

When they first met, he pulled her pigtails and she kicked him in the shin. She remembered crying, the tears streaming down her cheeks, flushed red with anger and hurt. And the dumbfounded expression on his face, when the tip of her garishly pink rubber boots hit him hard.

From there on out, they were thick as thieves.

They found comfort and strength in each other, the scrawny girl with the pigtails and the gawky boy with the mischievous gleam in his eyes. No tree was too tall to climb, no river too deep to swim, and no prank too risky to play. Roaming the countryside, they imagined being outlaws or bandits running from the law. Not one day went by without scrapped knees, a bloody nose, or trousers torn by thornbushes. She didn't mind the pain. It was raw and true and felt earned. Unlike the pain inflicted by adults. They might not have been outlaws running from the law, but they did run from something, too.

School brought an end to their childish ways. No more roaming the countryside. No more climbing trees or stealing eggs from Mrs. Gardener.

Without meaning to, she changed. Day after day she left part of her old self behind and grew into a new skin. A woman's skin. He was still there, although not as present as before. Somehow he was more reluctant to leave childhood behind. She both envied and mocked him for that.

In this time of transformation, it was obvious to everyone but her, that they were kindred spirits, complementing each other, meant to tackle life's challenges together.

Life had other plans for them.

They didn’t go to prom together but they fucked on the backseat of his car. They fucked again at Abigail's wedding and then never again.

Twice he asked her to marry him, and twice she said no.

He never asked her again.

In the end, she married another guy. It’s what you do at a certain age before you become an embittered old spinster, right? And maybe she really loved that guy once.

Willoughby didn't marry.

Once again reluctant to leave his old life behind, he only grew older, while she got pregnant with her first child and then pregnant again soon after. For the first time in her life, she lost track of him.

The years flew by, a few good years, a lot more bad years, straining in mind and body, and when he did get married, it came as such a surprise to her, she didn't even realize it at first.

Regret crept in, burning her like embers burn an old tree.

“That could've been me,” she thought to herself. “In that beautiful house, with a loving husband.”

But could it really have been her?

She didn’t dare answer.

When her daughter was murdered, all the pent up frustration, all the shit that her life had become, boiled over like a witch’s brew.

She searched for someone to sink her venomous teeth into and she found him. Was it fair? Hell, no, but it didn’t matter. She wanted him to feel her pain, she wanted him to do his goddamned job, and she knew, he could handle everything she threw at him.

Failing to understand, that he was a dying man.

When he sneezed blood on her, the realization came back with a vengeance. And a deep affection for this man, she thought she’d buried a long time ago.

“I didn't mean to...” The same dumbfounded expression on his face, like when she had kicked him in the shins so long ago.

“I know...”

“It was an accident...”

“I know, baby,” she chokes, suddenly overwhelmed with emotions, memories of pigtails, ripped trousers, and scraped knees. She’s a little girl again and he’s hurting her, but this time the pain is of a different color.

~Fin~


End file.
